Lake Michigan College hosts forum on gun violence

BERRIEN COUNTY, Mich. (WNDU) - Gun violence takes center stage as local leaders, healthcare workers, and experts gathered at Lake Michigan College to discuss gun violence’s impact on our schools and communities.

According to gunviolencearchive.org, we’re only 96 days into 2023, and there have been 141 mass shootings in the U.S., or almost 1.5 per day, including 74 students killed or injured by guns just this year.

This is why Lake Michigan College students say just one shooting is too many.

“I’m going to quote one of my colleagues who says you can’t have gun violence without a gun,” says Dr. Sonia Rajan, associate professor of Health and Behavior Studies at Teachers College, Columbia University. “I say this a lot as a researcher; I’m not anti-gun, I’m anti-gun violence, and I think that’s something we all can agree on.”

Lake Michigan College students are surveyed each fall on which current events they are passionate about. The Honors Program planned the forum to address those issues and invited experts with past topics, including health care, social justice, and student debt.

This year, students overwhelmingly said gun violence, a topic that hits close to home for these students, as less than two months ago, a mass shooter killed three students and injured five others on Michigan State’s campus.

“It was chosen this year because of the recent tragedies America has faced,” says Ellary Darling, a Sophomore Honors Student at Lake Michigan College. “The Michigan State shooting, as well as the Oxford High School shooting, are near and dear to all of our hearts. We had a lot of friends and family that were at those events, so specifically, this topic was chosen to talk about those discussions.”

The U.S. has seen an increase in the number of guns in homes since the COVID-19 Pandemic and an increase in mental health challenges post-COVID. Unsurprisingly, gun homicides and suicides have increased over this time period.

“It’s not either-or,” says Amy Scrima, director of the Lake Michigan College Honors Program. “It’s not a gun violence issue or a mental health issue; it’s definitely both. We need to figure out how to make positive changes in our communities, at the state level, and of course, beyond, to address both of those issues.”

Scrima added that educators should be focused on shaping young minds, not stopping mass shooters who try to harm them.

At the forum, one of the topics discussed was the claim that only a “good guy with a gun stops a bad guy with a gun.”

“The good guy with a gun concept is a fallacy,” says Michigan State Rep. Joey Andrews (D), 38 District. “The people I think who are imagining this are kind of imagining themselves in a Clint Eastwood Western where they’re going to walk into a building, and they’re going to square off with the shooter, and they’re going to draw from the hip, and be the hero. The thing to remember is that the shooter gets to determine when, where, and how the shooting happens. If you’re a good guy sitting down to eat in a restaurant, and you’re putting a fork up to your mouth when the shooter opens fire, good luck.”

They also discussed the Second Amendment, or the Right to Bear Arms, which states that “a well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

“We go back to the 2nd Amendment, and somehow, that supposedly authorizes everybody to have an M16 weapon,” says Ken Peterson, U.S. Army Officer (Retired). “That amendment was about having weapons support, ensuring that people could be called up to join the militia. We don’t have a militia anymore; we have a National Guard.”

Within the last few years, guns surpassed car accidents as the number one killer of children in the U.S., just one of the reasons that Michigan State Legislators are working to pass gun reforms involving safe storage laws, increased mental health services, and temporary seizure of weapons during mental health crises.

When asked how they could change the current gun climate in the U.S., the panelists told students that they should call elected officials, register to vote, and organize in their communities.

“Anybody who believes strongly in this issue and the changes that need to be made, you need to begin to organize now, yesterday really, and this is going to be a generational fight,” State Rep. Andrews said.

The forum featured five different speakers:

Dr. Sonali Rajan, associate professor of Health and Behavior Studies at Teachers College, Columbia University

State Rep. Joey Andrews (D), 38 District, representing Benton Harbor and surrounding areas

Ken Peterson, retired U.S. Army officer and hospital administrator

Adrianna Retberg, Emergency Department Nurse at Corewell Health

Karlye Visel, Emergency Department Nurse at Corewell Health